Jane Cook - Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

Lord, when you show me the path to take, may I obediently respond no matter how impossible it may seem.

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)

“My God, this kid’s in shock,” the medic said after taking one look at a Marine corporal who had been hit with an IED.

“Sir, I’ve been in shock for the last hour and a half,” that Marine responded. He then rolled his eyes to the back of his head and his heart promptly stopped. He went into cardiac arrest right there in front of those guys.

Immediately, they opened his chest and did something they never would have done in the United States. They pounded on his chest for more than ninety minutes. They did not give up. We stop in the United States after ten minutes. Ten minutes of that and if you don’t have him back, that patient’s dead. Those Marine doctors and medics worked on him for ninety minutes and they got him back. I don’t know how they did that.

Then they packaged him up, said, “We’ve done everything we can, we’re out of blood, out of juice, we’re shipping him to you. Take good care of him.” So that medical team sent him to our facility.

He arrived at about six a.m. on a Sunday morning, an hour and a half before I started my shift. I walked into the room at seven thirty and it was eerily silent. Two of our surgeons were just passed out on the couches, still with blood on their clothes.

“What’s going on?” I woke one of them up to ask.

“We got this kid last night and already put 110 units of blood into him,” he said, “and I don’t think we’re going to save him.”

So we walked over to the ICU to take a look at the patient together. The young surgeon was tormented. Sometimes we know we won’t save a casualty and we have more coming in… so do we keep trying or are we kidding ourselves? After putting so much work and time, would we even have a patient that’s salvageable?

Lord, when I am overwhelmed with tough decisions, give me wisdom so I can see clearly which direction to pursue.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5)

We arrived at the Marine’s bedside and found him asleep. The rhythmic sound of his breathing machine was a quiet but sobering reminder of just how fragile his life was at the moment.

“John, are you OK?” Andy, my colleague surgeon, grabbed him by the hand. This young Marine nodded his head.

“John, give me a thumbs up.” With his one remaining arm, John gave a thumbs up.

We looked at each other and said, “Well, we’re going to press forward. We’re not going to give up on him.” He was still bleeding, so we took him back to the operating room to wash out his wounds the best we could. We threw everything including the kitchen sink at him to try to make him stop bleeding. The chaplain was there every moment with us praying with us to give us the courage to do these kinds of things.

It was Father’s Day. Those of us who were fathers said we’re not going to have his father remember Father’s Day as the day he lost his son.

We didn’t have enough stored blood for him, so we had soldiers lined up around the tent waiting to donate their blood for this young man because we were not going to lose him on Father’s Day. He ended up needing 248 units of whole blood, but he survived Father’s Day.

Thankfully, we were able to get him stabilized, packaged up, and flown to Germany. From there he made it back to Brook Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where his family joined him.

Unfortunately, in the third month of his recovery, he developed a severe infection that he was not able to recover from. So he passed away, but he did so with his family at his side, as God intended.

Lord, give me the strength to persevere to the best of my ability and leave the results up to you.

“As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered.” (James 5:11a)

We have given the Army all four of our sons. Forrest died in the war already, and Oaken is fulfilling years of service as a West Point graduate. If I lose Oaken also, I not only lose him but also lose another part of Forrest, as they were identical twins. Our younger son Elisha had already served one year in Iraq, several months in Afghanistan and faces deployment again as will Oaken. Stephen enlisted into the Regular Army-Infantry shortly after Forrest was killed.

I remember when Eli was deployed, and how hard it was for me to face that he was going into an environment where other people would be trying to kill him. My sweet boy, who had never done anything to anyone, would be suddenly the unmarked, unknown evil occupier.

But my fears have never been limited to physical harm. I also feared for my son that his outlook towards this segment of humanity would become desensitized. I feared that the army would create an environment of survival which would breed dehumanization and Eli would look at the Iraqis as less than human. My greatest fear was probably that my sons would come home with their hearts hardened and changed, and unable to see God’s essence in other people. I feared more for their spiritual health than their physical, as I believed their spiritual health is most vital to their physical health.

I have a deep, simple faith that God has a plan for each of our lives and that our lives influence others in so many ways. I believe in what I call the “ripple effect,” that you have the power to touch other’s lives by the even simplest things you do. I believe that we have the potential for eternal effect, just like the ripples on a pond are initiated by a pebble being thrown in the water, and starts a concentric circle of movement that in turn will have impact elsewhere.

So during these times of deployments, my faith rested on the concept that God was using my children in a way that I may not be able to truly understand, but that God sees the ripples and eternal effect on the larger pond. I held onto this thought, trusting that God has his eyes on the bigger picture.

Lord, when only being able to see parts of the whole throws me into confusion, help me trust in your master plan.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)